In my experience, most crew don't like to go sick. Even when they
are sick, so often they come to work with a "niggling" cold or flu, and pass it on to their colleagues- hence the rash of crew "sickies" that seem to go around at one time. Or they put off calling in sick, because they think they'll feel better in the morning - but when they wake up feeling like death warmed up, they then have to call in sick at the last minute.
In my company, If you get sick and miss the start of a trip, you are pay protected for the hours you should have worked, minus the days of sick leave you took. (and 1 sick day's hours does not necessarily equal one flying day's hours. e.g. 3 sick days = 12 hours. 3 day Narita trip = 24 hours, leaving you 12 hours work you 'owe' the company.)
This means that you can then have your roster disrupted, your replacement trip then disrupting your next trip, and so on and so on. (This equates to a 9-5er coming in on the weekend to pay back the days they were sick during the week).
WRT: passenger's medical privacy. Yes, they are supposed to get medical clearance to fly- but often they don't. It's then too late when some-one falls unconscious, to
a) ask them what medical conditions they suffer or medications they are on ,if any, and
b) why they aren't travelling with their own nurse/doctor.
A little bit of respect for the profession please. Most F/As perhaps all ( in Australia anyway) have first aid training, and in some cases- Qantas in particular- certain crew members are trained to use the heart start machines we carry on board.
Marcus Welby we may not be, but in some cases we are all that stand between life and death in medical emergencies on board. There isn't always a doctor in the house!
T